I just had a very frustrating game where Widow locked my team in spawn for nearly the entire match.
We were on Gibraltar attack, and the enemy Widow found herself a cozy little camping spot to snipe us from spawn. None of us could peek, because more often than not it resulted in getting 'domed.
Our tank gave up on trying to get us out of spawn via a shield halfway through the match, bc it always got burned down before we could touch the objective.
I tried to dislodge the widow with various flankers, but… That tactic only worked 40% of the time. Sometimes I’d manage to successfully kill her, other times Widow would either grapple away to her backup sniping perch and/or get her Mercy to back her up. And every time, it took so long to reach her sniping perch (via sneaky flank routes, bc diving her directly would put you though a bastion-shaped meat-grinder on the way though) that it felt like Widow was still victorious even when I did kill her - she managed to run down the clock significantly via pinning my team in place until I finally reached her camping spot, after all.
Overall it felt like we were screwed no matter what we did: trying to fight Widow’s team left us wide open to being picked off by sniper fire, but also trying to dive Widow first left those of us who tried it wide open to being ganked by Widow’s team.
Just go Sombra. Even if you don’t kill her you dislodge her long enough for your team to push ahead and just TP out. There’s no excuse for failing to fight a Widow that badly when the hardest counter in the whole game is right there.
Widow isn’t in my top 10 most played and I had that pfp right before the forums pfp got blocked and never refreshed for some reason, I main Tracer now and my Widow playtime is basically inexistent now
… Tho I must admit I’m kind of a god as Widow and I’d easily keep everyone in their spawn and terrorize the whole lobby with my immaculate aiming skills and 100% scoped accuracy, even Kenzo is afraid of me
Aye, there’s the rub. Widow has first strike capability, so killing her feels moot if she’s already got her pick before you can physically get over there. And she has this potential while having her team sit in front of her and back her up if need be. It’s rough.
I would have a bad game once in a while with Widow dominating (or some other hero for that case). I take a loss and thats it.
Maybe you were unlucky and was playing with hacker or she was just good. I played as Widow a few games and she isnt that easy to play in a current meta.
The main problem with Widow is she’s basically the only Sniper hero in any modern videogame that doesn’t have a massive downside, that’s that’s available as a counter for nearly every other player in the game.
That said, I was thinking it was interesting. Thought experiment.
What would happen, if there was no damage dropoff on headshots? For everything that can headshot.
i.e. Cassidy could realistically Sniper duel with a Widow at long range.
I think that sort of approach risks having unwanted knock-on effects like a return to McSniper against all squishies. I’d really rather Widow got reworked somehow.
In my opinion, it’s a shame that Ashe is her own character instead of being the Widow remake, but what’s done is done.
Like fundamentally the problem with Widow is that every other hero through projectile drop off/speed, damage drop off or just a hard-limit on range is forced to play a Close/mid range game and Widow is not.
Especially when basically everyone lost their one-shot except Widow. I don’t think making it so Cassidy and Soldier can laser people across from the map would be the way to fix it, especially when those characters are already extremely potent in the close/mid range.
You know, everyone will sometimes get in matches where they cannot do anything, even good Widow.
I have sometimes matches that I absolutely dominate but than I have matches where i cant get out of spawn.
This has nothing to do with the heros, its the matchmaker.
I mean fundamentally you’re polarizing those characters even further, they win match ups they’re already winning significantly harder and assuming these aren’t just flat buffs and have some compensation nerfs, cause those characters are already good, they’d just lose the matchups they already lose much harder.
You don’t fix the widow problem by making additional widowmakers.
Run Sombra. You’re invis so you don’t have to take long routes to get to the Widow. When you get there, aim at the Widow’s head and throw Virus first, then quickly drill down with your primary. Duck and weave if she tries to shoot you, make it hard to get a headshot.
Unless the Widow’s a god-tier smurf you should be able either to kill or at least keep her occupied long enough for your team to get out.
Rest of your team can run dive to target, harass and dislodge the Widow even more. Winston/D.Va + Zen orb + Genji/Tracer should be fine to quickly jump in and take her out. Genji also counters Bastion at close range with the deflect and by simply double jumping back and forth over his head where’s it’s in a weird position to hit.
The balancing factors that exist in other modern shooters basically can’t exist in Overwatch.
You can largely boil most DPS champs down to their weapons and in other games, Snipers are extremely feast or famine with games like CSGO or Valorant having it decimate your economy if you buy an AWP and die with it (especially since the enemy can pick it up and basically get a free $4500), or Snipers just having really low stores of ammo, which doesn’t work in Overwatch cause everyone has infinite ammo.
Though I guess you could basically make it so Widows weapon has falloff except for when she ults.
